Cal Poly trying to rid Moriarty’s name from football scoreboard

September 1, 2014

Al Moriarty

A bankruptcy judge may soon decide whether the scoreboard at Cal Poly’s football stadium will display the name of a convicted felon at upcoming home games. [Tribune]

The university recently filed a motion in bankruptcy court requesting that a judge give the school permission to remove “Moriarty Enterprises” from the football scoreboard. A hearing on the motion is scheduled for Sept. 19, which is one day before Cal Poly’s first home football game of the 2014 season.

Former owner of Moriarty Enterprises, Al Moriarty, pleaded guilty last month to seven felonies stemming from a Ponzi scheme he committed. Moriarty’s investors are believed to have lost about $22 million as a result of the scheme.

In 2009, Moriarty paid $625,000 for the naming rights to Cal Poly’s then-new video scoreboard. Since Moriarty later filed for bankruptcy, the naming rights were transferred to a bankruptcy trustee.

Prior to the home opener, Cal Poly would like to replace Moriarty’s name with “#Cal Poly” or “Go Cal Poly,” court documents indicate.

You can t predict the person you are doing business with are douchebags but you would think the same morality clause signed by the athletes would be signed by the donors giving them a free out when this type of thing happens. Where are Cal Poly’sattorneys?

Cal Poly should just return the $625,000 and take off the name. (maybe someone has already said this?) But Cal Poly would never want to give back the money. And that money may help the many folks who were taken by Moriarty.

That’s the remedy that the bankruptcy trustee is seeking. The president of calpoly wrote an article in the tribune about why they don’t believe that is feasible or the correct judgement.

625k divided by 20 thousand students – they’ll only have to raise fees $30-$40/student to bail themselves out of getting into bed with criminals. Given the thousands of dollars in increases per year, that’s just a drop in the bucket. Of course, the tragedy is that money won’t go directly to administrators pay.

Or, rather than charging it to the kids, could get rid of about 4 overpaid administrators who allowed this scam to happen on their watch, and would thus save all the give-back in one year, and be able to REDUCE kids fees in subsequent years.

Someone said it here. A field represented by criminals, where criminals play. The recent football team players weren’t the first students and proud alumni from Cal Poly to get busted or get publicly displayed as criminals – Scott Peterson, Corey Pearce, Officer McDow, Officer Limon, that guy who worked at the City of SLO Utilities Department that lied to unsuspecting residents to pay for services he was paid to do for the City. The baseball player who got busted for felony manslaughter in Hawaii a few years back. That Monn character in Paso Robles who just got busted for molesting a child. I wonder if all these characters took an ethics class from the local Cal Poly professor that doubles as a city councilmember.